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If, for example, we were to raise fees to cover some additional traffic commissioner enforcement—this is only for argument—under the current arrangements for charging fees in connection with bus service registrations, only a proportion of operators would bear those costs. Punctuality enforcement benefits all operators, yet charges would hit only those operators who have either registered new services or varied existing ones. Cancellation of services has a transaction cost, though there is currently no charge. In addition, it seems reasonable to charge a fee for a registration to continue in force, much in the way that a holder of a PSV operator’s licence pays a regular fee for the ongoing validity of that licence.
It has been suggested on many occasions that if the traffic commissioners are to carry out additional work, they will necessarily require more resources. Clearly, there are two ways of funding that: either through the department and therefore taxation, or through the industry. I understand that the bus industry might be nervous at viewing this new power. However, I stress that further work needs to be carried out on the additional resources needed, and no decision has been taken on how much, if any, of that burden should fall to the industry. A well-run and modern industry should be able to manage the costs associated with competing in the market, including any regulatory or enforcement costs.
I do not currently have an estimate of how much any additional work might cost, but I do not expect it to be excessive. The detailed work on the arrangements for the bus punctuality regime is still taking place, in particular through the Bus Partnership Forum, and that work will consider the level of any necessary
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On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 54 [Powers of traffic commissioners where services not operated as registered]:
Earl Attlee moved Amendment No. 63A:
Clause 54, page 47, line 10, after “operator”)” insert “consistently over a period of time, with due regard to any exceptional circumstances”
The noble Earl said: I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 63B and 64A. All these amendments deal with the traffic commissioners’ judgment in determining whether a service is not being operated “as registered” and the measures available to rectify such problems.
We welcome the highlighting of the punctuality issue and its effect on passengers’ perception of local bus services. It seems desirable to allow the traffic commissioner to investigate the root causes of such issues and prepare reports to make suggestions for improvement for both the authorities and the operators.
My point in Amendment No. 63A concerns the initial judgment by the traffic commissioners. It should be remembered that this is one of the commissioners’ quasi-judicial functions, which we have discussed. If the traffic commissioner network is populated by competent individuals who are knowledgeable about transport matters—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, raised—this should provide no problems. However, as it stands, the Bill gives no guidance about the circumstances in which a traffic commissioner can deem a local service to be operated “not as registered”. Specifically, no mention is given of the timeframe that such observances should take. I would like to think that any problem should persist over a period of time, with due regard to exceptional circumstances and other situational details, before action is taken by a traffic commissioner. The Minister may say that this is a matter for guidance but, without provision being made in the Bill, the potential exists for a traffic commissioner to exercise poor judgment.
Where a problem is identified with a particular service, the Bill allows traffic commissioners to publish a report containing remedial measures to be implemented by operators and local traffic authorities. Amendment No. 63B would ensure that this report was consistent with any local transport policy that might be affected by the measures. This will ensure electoral accountability and that any advice is not at odds with the other plans that a local authority may have.
Furthermore, if the advice is to be effective, it should be reasonably practicable to implement and have regard for the other pressures that authorities
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Advice should be in proportion to the problem faced. I am certain that many suggestions can be made to improve punctuality, but there needs to be acknowledgement that they should offer value for money. The traffic commissioner network is perhaps not the best judge of what is affordable to local authorities, and I can envisage that advice might not be sensible in some cases. If recommendations are undeliverable, they will be meaningless.
Clause 55 makes revision to the section of the Transport Act 2000 that deals with penalties, although I believe that these have now been renamed “sanctions” by virtue of the last subsection of the clause. The idea of traffic commissioners fining operators in the event of poor performance seems reasonable, and the Bill allows traffic commissioners a wider range of options than at present. The idea that money can be returned to benefit bus services and passengers is more favourable than simply fining operators, under which passengers might see an increase in the fares that they pay.
However, the revisions to the subsection of the Transport Act that deals with the amounts of such penalties provide no more clarity to the situation. At present, paragraph (a) of the subsection stipulates that operators can be fined up to £550 per vehicle. However, paragraph (b) of the same subsection is somewhat vaguer and allows the Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales to specify another amount. I am unclear how this may work in practice, and it would be helpful if the Minister could clarify exactly what it means.
As the Bill revises and increases the powers available to the traffic commissioners where services are not operated as registered, this matter needs to be addressed. I believe that there needs to be some guidance, otherwise the powers could be used in an unpredictable or inconsistent manner. That could have the unintended consequence of passengers thinking that they had received a worse deal in one part of the county compared with another. Guidance could take the form of a penalty policies statement published by the traffic commissioners in advance. This would provide clarity to operators and ensure that the penalty system functioned as intended, with consistency given to traffic commissioners’ decisions. I beg to move.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Earl has made some interesting points about punctuality enforcement, although I do not see a golden thread of consistency of approach in the three amendments. Perhaps we expect too much sometimes.
The first amendment would limit the circumstances in which the traffic commissioner could formally engage with a local traffic authority to cases where bus punctuality had been consistently poor over a period of time. Where a bus operator is faced with a licence sanction for poor performance under Section 26 of the Transport Act 1985, the traffic commissioner has to be satisfied
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The Government continue to work with stakeholders to develop a robust regime for managing bus punctuality. The stakeholders are keen to encourage such engagement to begin at an earlier stage, for example where operators identify a traffic problem and encounter difficulties in keeping to a timetable without actually failing to meet the punctuality standards. They would like to use the tripartite process of commissioner, authority and operator to nip potential problems in the bud rather than to wait for them to become manifest. The Government fully support that in principle but consider that there is no need to spell it all out in legislation. There is nothing to prevent the three parties meeting to discuss these matters and developing strategies to prevent them getting worse. The existence of stronger legislative powers if the situation does get out of control would spur them to do so. Clause 54 will provide that spur and give the traffic commissioner sufficient teeth to act when appropriate. The amendment, however, would pull in the other direction and would in effect deter the traffic commissioner from taking steps unless things were in a very poor state indeed. In practice, the traffic commissioners will use their judgment and common sense, as they usually do, and the clause gets the balance about right.
The noble Lord’s second amendment moves in the other direction. It aims to limit the type of remedial measure that the traffic commissioner could recommend to the local traffic authority in his report under new Section 27A(4). It is clearly our intention that any remedial measures recommended should be reasonably practicable to implement and consistent with the local transport plan, so far as that plan goes into such a level of detail, or at least not inconsistent with it. However, I am not persuaded that we need these words in the legislation. In practice, traffic commissioners recognise that they are not experts in traffic management techniques and would be most unlikely to make a recommendation that had not been discussed with representatives from the local authority and accepted by them as a reasonably practicable step that they could take that would not have an adverse impact on any of their other traffic management objectives. They are also under a general obligation to exercise their functions in a way that is reasonable and rational. It is not necessary to spell it out in detail in legislation, as the noble Lord suggests.
The third amendment in this group is most odd. It affects an order-making power of the Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers to amend the maximum penalty which a traffic commissioner can impose on an operator under Section 155 of the Transport Act 2000. At present, that sum is £550 for each vehicle that the operator is authorised to operate under any of the PSV operators’ licences. There will of course be more than one if the operator has operating centres in more than one traffic area.
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The order-making power simply enables a Minister to substitute a different figure for £550. The order is by statutory instrument, and any proposed use of the power would be subject to consultation. It would be most bizarre for the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers to be obliged to issue guidance in advance, setting out how they proposed to use the power, which would be the effect of the amendment. I see no value in that at all. It would appear to be asking Ministers to fetter their own discretion, or that of their successors, in a way which, if the noble Lord sat back and thought about it, would be most unsatisfactory.
The amendments seem to go in different directions. The last amendment is most strange in terms of what it seeks to achieve. Perhaps the noble Lord sees it as a probing amendment, but I am not quite sure what the noble Lord is seeking to find as a result. I am not persuaded by the amendments, and I ask him to think about them carefully and not to press them.
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Earl Attlee: I am grateful for the way in which the Minister gently declined my carefully thought out amendments. I shall look carefully at how Amendment No. 64A works and will read carefully what the Minister has said. In the mean time, subject to the usual caveats, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 63B not moved.]
Baroness Crawley: This may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until 3.30 pm on Monday 17 December.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall): The Committee is adjourned.
- Committee adjourned at 7.32 pm.
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